Solar Decathlon

Objective:
Create a home management system for the University of Hawaii at Manoa Solar Decathlon energy efficient house using the Wicket Java Framework’s model view control design pattern.

Description:
For this project I was in a group with Michael Cera and Shoji Bravo. After evaluating the objectives of the Solar Decathlon house, the following major control systems were decided on: Aquaponics, Electricity, HVAC, Lighting, Water Heater, and Settings. The web page sticks to a basic design which has an overall status section, main content section, menu bar, and header image. In this way, any new modules can follow the previously build structure in order to focus on the content and user requirements for the web page.

On an overview, the project is not finished because the objectives was to learn about model view controller design pattern. As such, all the numerical statistics are arbitrary static numbers. The main focus here was to link together all the resources together to create a coherent interface geared towards an end user. The big buttons on the home page are similar to Ubuntu’s netbook interface so that an end user has easy access to various control systems.

In the same consideration, many websites tend to user size 10 font to deliver more information to the user. We have to ask the question, “Who is our target audience?” As we know that this web interface would be for a family living in the house, the web interface must accommodate those with weaker eye sight and little technology skills to enlarge the font, such as a grand parent. Thus, the standard font size of 12px is used throughout the website.